Guadeloupe on the way south - April
Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Sat 18 Apr 2009 01:44
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The passage from Montserrat started dead into wind so it was
necessary to tack to get clear of the island. Once clear, the wind came round a
little more towards the east and with full main and genoa up we made 6kts close
hauled into the light winds of 8-12 kts. It was not possible to make the course
we had planned (it generally never is - the wind rarely does what you hope it
will do), but we were just happy to sail south just east of south and hope the
wind changed latter in the day. It was a beautiful day with just a few fluffy
clouds and in the light winds we were able to sit on the weather rail and dangle
our feet over the side, with waves every now and again coming up to wash
our feet. A very pleasant sail. As the day wore on the wind did behave itself
and shifted to the east and then north of east which allowed a course to be
set straight for Guadeloupe. Late afternoon the winds came up and it was time to
reef again and we had a fast passage into Deshaies on the north west corner. The
wind does funny things around the end of the islands and the boats at anchor in
Deshaies were all facing the wrong way - out to sea (west). So we had to
anchor the wrong way, but were fine, that is until another boat came in
later on. They also had to anchor pointing out to sea, but got a bit too close
to us and when we all swung the right way round (pointing east to the land) they
ended up much too close and had to move. (Last in is always the first to move.)
We stay just one night before moving on to Les Saintes, lying between Guadeloupe
and Dominica.
 A couple of sunsets at
Deshaies.
  The terrain at the south west corner of Guadeloupe
heading for Les Saintes.
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